One of the key challenges to successful nanomanufacturing is the discovery of a means to assemble nanoscale objects into controlled, user-defined patterns for lower cost and capital investment than current microelectronic assembly technologies. While self-assembly techniques can make largely (although not perfect) regular arrays of nanostructures, programming the local nanoscale assembly process in a reliable and cost effective manner, and then putting these locally-assembled pieces into a bigger macroscale structure has yet to be realized as a potential manufacturing technology. Alternative lithography techniques have obtained nanoscale resolution, but still employ top-down or subtractive processing. There have been efforts to trap small particles with magnetic fields. However, to date, these solutions have employed patterned magnetic materials which are in set configurations, i.e. they are not locally reprogrammable into arbitrary patterns.
As such, a need currently exists for a programmable local nanoscale assembly process which can be further assembled into a larger macroscale structure.